The new CEO is actually really great. Engine Yard needed this. The choices he's made are ones that should have been made a long time ago. I think he also pays attention to what we're good it, which has always been a gripe of mine. He's learning what we're able to do well and trying to build on that. He wants to keep our big customers and figure out how to make our platform work for the people that need it most.

Company culture has rebounded a bit since the layoffs. Hiring is resuming with focus on engineering (yay).

Cons

When you deal with so many people's core businesses, security is very tight. Though it's expected, it can be cumbersome on a day to day basis.

The time needed to accomplish fixes of underlying issues is still hard to come by.

Company perks have been cut back recently, but this is to be expected.

The agile methodology that has been adopted recently can be cumbersome and overly specific at times. Allow for engineering creativity in solving challenges rather than exhausting the challenge before it gets to the engineers.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

The CEO has recently outlined what he wants to accomplish. I would be ecstatic if we stick with that direction long enough to really achieve something. The worst thing we could do is find a way to shoehorn the things we were doing into the new framework so that nothing changes once again. The pattern of direction changing without day to day work changing is difficult to endure. Pay attention to ticking time-bombs and involve engineers in the decision process of what needs to happen and how to solve it. Guidelines are better than exact specs.

Great work/life balance, above-average compensation, highly distributed team, interesting technical challenges. Teams are finally communicating and progress is once again being made.

Cons

Traditionally, senior management at Engine Yard has been astonishingly poor, including and especially at the top position. This effectively brought all forward momentum at the company to a halt. That said, all of the current executives are relatively new to the company, and they're making coherent (albeit difficult) decisions about personnel and strategy.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

You have a good plan in place, and you have the right teams to execute it. Let those teams finish what they've started, and don't change direction yet again.

- Competitive Salary- Laid back work environment, good work/life balance- Colleagues are generally smart and nice- Lots of autonomy in your work- Well regarded brand in the startup world, so it's a good training grounds if you want to go work at another startup- They finally fired John Dillion

Cons

- Execs cannot focus or prioritize, so resources are spread thin- They tried to be everything to everyone, with the attempt to be a polyglot company, which is not a good strategy with the engineering resources they have. Ended up poorly executing those strategies.- They try to save money by hiring more inexperienced people who have no idea what they are doing, which is a burden on people who are more experienced and properly trained in their function.- Lack of processes and discipline on enforcing the little processes they do have leads to chaos when trying to get anything done efficiently- Extremely high turnover makes it difficult to maintain any momentum, lots of talented execs and employees have left- New CEO ended up cutting costs through layoffs. Let go talented employees and kept some incompetent ones.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Think holistically about the consequences of cutting costs. Good luck.

Just about everything.Horrible developer culture who are always complaining and unhelpful.Absent CEOVery little to learn - industry is being consolidated by AWS and other IaaS, there will be very little need for a PaaS in a couple of years

There's a lot of smart people around, and employees enjoy some flexibility in terms of remote work. People move around and sync up remotely as needed without issue.

Cons

Communication and cultural voids between different parts of the organization - overall teamwork isn't great. Not a lot of visability into what different parts of the company are doing, various leadership/exec teams have come and gone.

The company has so little momentum that it's a pretty relaxed place to be. Now, I want to recognize that there were folks who were grinding on emergencies, fires, and (usually unnecessary) deals but "I" felt the pacing to be slower than much of Silicon Valley. Outside of the typical, "why isn't this ready yet?" questions, execs don't ask very tough (or insightful) questions so it's not necessary to be completely present.

Your choice of Macbook Air or Pro.

Cons

Little to no growth, high churn, aimless management team, and above all, a completely absent CEO. I'm pretty sure he has a daily reminder that goes off at 7:45AM that says, "Go be CEO," which I assume he usually ignores. I do like his jacket though, and I can only hope that my hair will have that devilishly handsome silver luster in my later years.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

At this point? I'd say take whatever money is left and just have a huge blowout party in southeast Asia or something. It's be wild and probably a better use of funds anyway.

Experience and connections in the community. Lots of opportunities to participate in conferences (although less of that now perhaps). Some very sharp people work here. The outstanding commitment of supporting the customers. The teamwork, especially within teams.

Cons

The undercurrent. The hipster crowd not accepting others outside their limited world. Communications and cooperation between teams is nearly non-existent - for example engineering and any team. Or marketing and most other teams. It's just weird. No attempt at cross-functional project management. Lack of respect. Constant management change. Changing management makes more changes without understanding past mistakes, or the world they are now in.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Seriously. Wake up and smell the culture. Be the example that you need to be. Attempt to improve the undercurrent. If you can improve the culture - first - then you have a better chance at making the great changes that you dream of. But without the people working as a team, it just is not going to happen.